Introduction: We continue the “My Summer @ Google” series with a post from Emily, a sophomore computer science and psychology double major at St. Mary's College of Maryland who recently attended FUSE in New York.

The anticipation beforehand was almost unbearable—to be completely honest I had been waiting for FUSE since the day I got home from CSSI last summer. I remember texting and writing letters to my CSSI friends, how excited I was to finally see them again and be back in a place that I wish I had never had to leave: Google. I was also looking forward to meeting new people, having new experiences and learning new things. I knew FUSE would give me lifelong experiences and lifelong friends.

FUSE was a weeklong adventure in programming, in learning our way around New York City, and in fun. And it all starts on day one. The first day our hosts handed out some Google swag and took us on an office tour. From being in the Mountain View office last summer and the New York office this summer, my idea of a real workplace is completely skewed. When I think of “the office,” I think of awesome cafes, game areas, tables with Legos, completely colorful cubicles, bikes and scooters and on top of that, all the great benefits that come with the job, such as free food, rides to work, laundry, gym and all sorts of other things. As my dad always tells me, I better realize that every job isn’t like this. I’m lucky!

During FUSE, we spent our days learning different programming languages and tools. One day it was HTML 5, another day AppInventor and another AppEngine. Our main project for the week was to code an app in 12 hours during our Thursday night hackathon. We also broke away from the computer side and learned about interviewing, sat down with engineers at Google to ask questions about what it was like to work there, and got the chance to explore NYC.

Before the all-night hackathons, though, we had a couple of nights to get to know each other. We went on a scavenger hunt in New York City, which was so much fun! We were given tasks through a phone and once we completed one, we’d get another. It was a great bonding experience and one of my favorite parts of the program (although it’s hard to pick just one!). Another day we went bowling and visited the elevated High Line park, snapping tons of pictures along the way. Most nights, after getting back from Google we would go out into Times Square and do lots of exploring. We also made it to the Metropolitan Musuem of Art, Rockefeller Center and Central Park in our time before the hackathon.

Our hackathon (or “Camp Hack”), was probably the best part of FUSE. Our mission: code an app uses social media in 12 hours and then give a presentation to a bunch of engineers about it after being up all night. We started at 8 pm Thursday night and finished 8 am Friday morning. >
It started off well, with raffles, music, campfires, laughter and fun-- and then the bugs hit: code that was working suddenly wasn’t, energy levels were suddenly low, people had no idea what they were doing and how to fix it. It was a long night to say the least! But, as all good engineers do, by the time 8 am rolled around the next morning we had anywhere from semi-working to fully working code that we were able to present. It was a one-of-a-kind experience, and a good one—it even included watching the sunrise over the Manhattan skyline at dawn.

Because of FUSE, I can say that I’ve coded a working app and I know what direction of computer science I want to go into (human-computer interaction). I have a group of mentors I can ask questions and bounce ideas off of, an idea of what an engineering working environment might be like, and what the interviews to get me there might consist of. Because of FUSE, I have a group of friends unlike any other group of friends I’ve ever had that all share one special, passionate interest.

I’ve been Googled. Well, that’s how I put it. More than once I’ve been called the “Google girl,” famous for walking around my small campus with my Google backpack proudly on my back. I’m the first one the girls on my field hockey team come to for computer help. It’s because of my summers at Google that I am so infatuated with computer science, because if it wasn’t for CSSI and FUSE for opening up my eyes to computer science and all the things I could do with it, I would probably still be a biology major.

Computer science is the future and is going to change the world, and I honestly can’t wait to be a part of it, because the change starts now with me and the FUSErs who I spent the best week of my summer with.